"Excellent post. Most of the Bushbots here fail to realize the importance of immigration. It truly is unlike any other issue of the day. If Bush's plan goes through, we can say goodbye to the Republican Party (not just in '06 due to voter apathy, but forever due to millions of new former-illegals Democrat votes)."
Thank you, but the situation isn't quite that dire.
Bush's plan won't go through. The House will refuse to capitulate on amnesty. So we will have status quo.
Yes, the Republicans will lose in 2006, but it won't be voter apathy. It will be BorderBots refusing to vote for Republicans they previously supported, but who supported the President's plan didn't give them the sealed border.
What we will get, then, is a Democratic Congress (with small, not huge, majorities) and status quo on immigration.
Status quo means 2 million new illegals slip through a year (the Border Patrol's 2005 statistics were 3 million crossings and 1.1 million captures and returns). SOME of them will indeed be registered to vote by the Democrats in rotten boroughs, and some will vote. But most won't. So, the situation will drift.
A Democratic Congress might try for a permanent-majority-making (for them) amnesty and fast-track citizenship, but there will still be a filibuster in the Senate (which they may well nuke), and the Presidential veto (which they will not be able to override).
Meanwhile, the chastened Republican Party, which will have lost more than a few border moderates, will repackage itself and add a wall at the Southern Border as a core platform point. The Republican nominee in 2008 will probably support that point, and if he does the BorderBots will come roaring back to the polls and the Republicans roar back to the majority.
Incidentally, I call Border Conservatives "BorderBots" affectionately, because even though I don't share the full magnitude of their concern, I understand where they are coming from and see that they are sincere.
But I don't like the term "Bushbot", and suggest you don't use it. It implies that there is something wrong with President Bush, and there is something wrong with the people who are loyal to him and support him. President Bush is a good man and a good President. He's made a bad error here - as have we all; he just happens to be the President so his errors get magnified - but he's still a good President, and there's nothing wrong with people who are loyal to him. They are frantic about seeing the whole Republican agenda, which they truly believe in, cast up on the rocks by what they perceive as a bunch of bitter-ender fanatics. The BorderBots are too hard on the Bushbots, and the Bushbots are too hard on the BorderBots. "BorderBot", is not a pejorative term in widespread use here, but "Bushbot" is.
We should stop calling people Bushbots. It's not fair.
We should stop calling people Bushbots. It's not fair.
It's just as likely they will conclude they lost because Iraq is not going well and gas prices are too high.
They may even conclude that the House anti-illegals stance cost them too many Latino votes.
I'd hate to hand the Speaker's gavel to Pelosi, give up our imminent victory in the courts, and embolden the Democrat party for years to come ... just to "send a message" that never got there anyway.
There will be no "Meanwhile" if we lose the Majority in Congress. Present day democrats will find so many ways to reinterpret Laws it will be like living in Venezuela.
I hope your right Vicomte13 but this is what we thought about the McPain/Finkgold Campaign Finance Reform bill. Sometimes the Repubis seem to have no limits to their gullability.